Welcome to the Fishing Report. It is overcast and 57 degrees this morning in Townsend. Wow, it feels great outside. The streets were everything BUT quiet this morning. When I pulled onto the main road through town a long line of old Cobras drove by. As each one passed that familiar deep sound was music to my ears. I turned my head to see each one drive by. They are part of a club that meets here most years. They picked the perfect weekend to drive a convertible sports car in the mountains.

Little River looks awesome. The water temperature is 62 degrees in town and cooler in the mountains. That’s perfect. The flow is excellent too. Right now the river is flowing at a rate of 173 cubic feet per second. Median flow for this date is 86 cfs. If the sky stays overcast today the fishing will be at it’s best for Fall.

I would use nymphs or dries. You are going to find pristine trout streams everywhere you are in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You can choose from a variety of flies right now. Terrestrials, mayfly, stonefly or caddis dries will work. I like to use an Elk Hair Caddis or Stimulator under these conditions. Most important is getting a good drift and staying out of sight. By out of sight, I mean from the trout.

The lower drainages should provide perfect smallmouth bass conditions. Try poppers, Stealth Bombers or crayfish imitations. Hoppers, cicadas and other terrestrials will tempt the bronze back bass. They’ve got their water back, the water is cooler and they should be happy.

We are going to be busy this weekend. All indications point to that. Most evident is our website traffic. Yesterday we had 4,280 unique visitors. That number averages around 3,000 per day. This Fishing Report was opened by 774 unique people. It usually averages about 500 people per day. What this tells me is, people are wanting to get out and fish. This is going to be the weekend to do just that. The high tomorrow will be around 82 degrees. The low tonight should dip to 55 degrees. Sunday is more of the same. There is a small chance for rain Sunday.

Well, I’m not Chairman of the Townsend Planning Commission anymore. We hold our officer elections in September. Last night was the night. I suggested to the Mayor a couple of months ago that we pick someone else to give everyone a new job. Joann is now the ChairPERSON. She will do a great job. Becky is Vice-CHAIRPERSON. She is a civil engineer who lives in town. She does a lot of work with the Department of Transportation. I am the new Secretary-PERSON. I have to sign all the legal stuff we do. Mike, Pat and Lisa also serve on the Commission. My term ended a year ago and they keep me in the group. Joe is our professional planner and is paid for by the City. Claude is the building inspector. He is always there giving us his input.

We do have a lot of fun. We help pople get through the process of conforming to the city ordinances that we write. We are striving to make the process as painless as possible. I want to help anyone who comes before the commission and there were plenty of people there last night needing help. One thing we acted on is subdividing a parcel of land. Half of the parcel will be retained by the Heritage Center. The other half will be given to the National Park Service. The NPS is going to build a center to store historical items collected from the Smokies and other National Parks. Historians will be able to visit and view these artifacts. Those artifacts will be rotated in and out of the museum. This will be a great addition to our town. The building is going to be nice. We will see the complete site plan shortly at a planning commission meeting.

I don’t think we have to approve the building even though it will be located in our town. Jurisdiction for the Park property is sort of exempt from city or county scrutiny. Think about it. Cades Cove is in Blount County. Do you think the Park Service has to get a building permit to remodel an old cabin or other structure in the Cove. No, they don’t. The whole Park is in several counties. They have properties within cities. I think there is a building in the city of Gatlinburg. The NPS standards are probably higher than any other government agency where the Park is located. I bet they don’t pay property taxes either.

Curtis just came in. He’s a new part time guy. He has extensive fly fishing experience. He is also a very nice young man. He will work on Fridays and Saturdays.

So, get ready for some fishing this weekend. Curtis said he had a good day on the Clinch this week.

Our fly fishing classes will be offered from March to October 2011. To sign up just call the shop at 877-448-3474. You can read more on our website in the Schools Section. The fly fishing class schedule follows:

Saturday September 10 – Beginner Day One
Saturday September 24 – Beginner Day One
Sunday September 25 – Beginner Onstream Day Two
Saturday October 8 – Beginner Day One
Saturday October 22 – Beginner Day One
Sunday October 23 – Beginner Onstream Day Two